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Catholic Schools not worthy of a seat at the planning table

Tue, 2017-08-01 10:25 — Jenny Warfe

Australia's Catholic Church was Australia's biggest private property owner in 2005[1] and probably still is. It is deeply embedded in Australia's housing-fueled ponzi-scheme, which costs the rest of us so much environmental heartache and financial pain. It also a major source of the immigrationist propaganda that is fed the public. The author has been particularly sickened to read lately of how the church is reaping untaxed benefits by wrecking a local creek whilst developing a site now infamous for its institutionalised child-abuse, and how it continues to be granted a privileged seat at the planning table.

"So, too, does the Catholic sector in particular demand, and is given, a seat at the table in the planning of greenfield areas.
In its 2016-17 annual report Catholic Education Melbourne claims to be "firmly embedded" with the Victorian Planning Authority and to have strengthened its "prominent" position in growth area planning. [The report] also notes that where the planning authority agrees a Catholic school is justified in a new suburb, it has changed its approach to designate the site as 'Catholic' rather than just 'non-government'.

Another article, about Sunbury with Trevor Dance quoted: "Changing Sunbury a microcosm of Melbourne's rapid growth," by Clay Lucas and Royce Millar, notes that the Salesian Brothers are working with the developer to bring forward the development of the land, and leading to the destruction of Jackson’s Creek.

A 2013 SMH article about these evil abusers, the Salesians of Sunbury, "The Hell House," by Mark Russell and Jared Lynch, gives us significant background and sticks in my mind for personal reasons.

As a Paediatric Audiologist around 1980 I remember one of my patients was a young very deaf lad from some farming area, whose mother so proudly told me she had got him a place boarding at the Salesian Brothers Rupertswood, Sunbury, which had an agricultural strand to its curriculum. The Salesians' debauchery at Rupertswood would have been well underway back then. She envisaged her beloved deaf son becoming a competent farmer and returning to their family farm to eventually take over running it. I shudder to think what might have actually happened, and that the Salesians may well have returned him to his family as a broken, damaged man - so many of whom have gone on to commit suicide.

It makes me sick that they are now reaping millions of dollars developing the site where they abused so many children in their care- and yet we still consider them and their organisation worthy of a seat at the planning table. And they are of course quite happy to trash the local environment in the process.

NOTES

[1] "NGOs are an integral part and function of corporate power. In 2005, Australia’s Catholic Church, which receives tens of millions of dollars yearly in government subsidy had revenue of nearly A$16.2 billion, all tax free, and ‘was Australia’s biggest private property owner and nongovernment employer, with more than 150,000 on its payroll (Cadzow 2012: 12)."
Paul, E.. Australia as US Client State, edited by E. Paul, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, .
Created from slv on 2017-05-24 07:01:05

Comments

Mai Fong's interview about the Chinese One Child Policy was moving but misrepresented the situation in a number of damaging ways.

Firstly, China's birth rates were mostly reduced by a popular voluntary program before the one-child policy came into effect. This can be seen by a quick glance at the United Nations fertility data. So it's not necessary to decry any benefits of reducing population growth in order to have an excuse to reject the one-child policy. Plenty of countries achieved similar fertility reduction without coercive measures, and each has seen a similar economic take-off after fertility fell.

Secondly, China's economic advance has everything to do with reducing its population growth. Without this, those cheap labourers would have stayed poor, poorly housed and poorly educated. She cited capital investment, but this only led to betterment when it didn't have to be spread so thinly. No poor country has advanced while fertility remains high.

Thirdly, China has always had vast numbers of unmarried men, due to female infanticide and concubines. Many male-dominated societies are similarly skewed - Pakistan has a higher ratio of men to women than China. The availability of sex-selective abortions might have increased the sex ratio, and the one-child policy may have incentivised its use somewhat, but similar ratios have been noted among overseas Chinese.

I note that she didn't mention the enormous advance in women's educational and career opportunities, and status, that has flowed from parents' investment in their only-daughter. (This is attributable to small families, not the one-child policy: it has happened similarly in places with voluntary family planning, from Kerala to South Korea.)

Her final call, that China now needs more babies as an economic resource, is deplorably ignorant of the concept of per capita prosperity and the role of natural resources.

I am dismayed that the tragic excesses of the one-child policy are used to undermine the demographic advantages that China has achieved.

And certainly, even regardless of this, it does not make sense for a party who seeks to profit from development to have a role in making decisions about what can be developed. With growing urbanisation reducing space and forcing more people into more cramped areas we need to be preserving our open and natural spaces more than ever.
Matt

The idea that churches should sell their land for profit is abhorrent given that they were often entirely gifted to them by the Governors of early colonies. Australian historian, Michael Cannon in his book "Old Melbourne Town" (1991) explains how the churches and church schools were aided to land and wealth by the Government, by the allocation of community resources to them:

"Spacious sites would be granted free of charge to established religions, and the salaries of clergy would be subsidised" pg 268

and:

"communities which raised 300 pounds in donations towards building a church would be subsidised 1 pound for 1 pound up to a maximum of 1000 pounds" pg 268

Elsewhere Cannon describes how free land was also gifted for church schools. Now this I do not object to if the land is retained for community purposes, but to sell the land for profit, and to develop land that is currently open space, I certainly object to.

Many schools in the Banyule area have been closed over the years, in record numbers. The recent closures have released land for housing, for property developers. All the schools in the area are overflowing and full to the rafters. Catholic Education is doing well! While church numbers might be dwindling, not so for Catholic schools, They are benefiting from "planning", synonymous to delivering population growth! In reality, the plan is no plan, but haphazardly trying to manage damage control, and schools are suffering.
This means lower quality education, crowded classrooms, crowded curriculums, and negative impacts on learning outcomes - and teachers. The benefits to the Catholic Church are clear- more students and revenues from private education delivery. While the horrors of child abuse runs deep in this culture, now the schools are run by professional teachers, not necessarily Catholic. No wonder they are part of "planning" now!